Verbs - What a verb is?

Verbs

1.     Formation of the Verb-Word (morphologically)

Verbs are the words that show the action in the sentences. Verbs can be divided into various kinds depending upon how they are formed. Grammarians would call this a morphological division.

·         Regular verbs

·         Irregular verbs

·         Compound verbs

·         Phrasal verbs

·         Regular verbs examples:

V¹             V²                    V³

Abase        abased             abased

Adjust       adjusted           adjusted

Admit        admitted          admitted

Advertise   advertised        advertised

Capture    captured          captured

·         Irregular verbs examples:

V¹             V²                    V³

Go                        went                 gone

Sleep         slept                 slept

See            saw                  seen

Drink        drank               drunk

Do                        did                   done

·         Compound Verbs

A compound verb is a combination of two verbs:

Examples:

The point that Joan was trying to make was lost on her audience.

Our boss has been talking for a very long time.

·         Phrasal Verbs

The Oxford English Grammar distinguishes seven types of prepositional or phrasal verbs in English:

§  Intransitive phrasal verbs (give in)

§  Transitive phrasal verbs (find out )

§  Mono transitive prepositional verbs (look after) 

§  Doubly transitive prepositional verbs (blame on )

§  Copular prepositional verbs. (serve as)

§  Mono transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (look up to)

§  Doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (put down to )

2.     The Verb's Role in a Sentence (syntactically)

Verbs can be divided according to the job they do in a sentence. The grammar-expert's way of saying this is that we can divide verbs syntactically.

These are the divisions and sub-divisions according to syntax:

• Finite verbs
• Transitive verbs
• Intransitive verbs
• Linking Verbs
• Non-finite verbs (verbal)
• Infinitives
• Gerunds
• Participles
• Helping verbs (auxiliaries)
• Primary auxiliaries
• Modal auxiliaries

·         Finite verbs

-          Transitive verbs

The transitive verb has two voices:  active and passive.

Active: John drives a car

Passive: A car is driven by John

-          Intransitive verbs

Examples:

To sit – He sits in the front row.

To rise – The sun rises in the East.

To lie – He lays in bed all day.

-          Linking verbs

The linking verb is used to connect the subject with two kinds of complements:

1) An adjective that describes the subject;

She is beautiful

I feel bad

2) A noun or noun equivalent that means the same as the subject

John is a student

He became a pilot

·         Non-finite verbs (verbal)

-          Infinitive

Examples of infinitive forms:

Present infinitive                         : to work, to do

Present Continuous infinitive      : to be working, to be doing

Perfect infinitive                          : to have worked, to have done

Perfect continuous infinitive       : to have been working, to have been doing

Present infinitive passive             : to be done

Perfect infinitive passive             : to have been done

-          Gerund

Gerund-

As subject of a sentence: Dancing bored him

As complement of a verb: Her hobby is painting

After preposition: He was accused of smuggling

After certain verbs: I admitted taking the money

In noun compounds: It is a good diving board

-          Participles

Participles use to form the continuous tense.

The infinitive + ing        Examples: working, loving, sitting

She is working in the office

He is sitting on the table

·         Helping verbs (auxiliaries)

-          Primary auxiliaries

Primary Auxiliaries

The verbs ‘be’, ‘do’, ‘have’ used in sentences are categorized as Primary Auxiliaries

Examples:

John is sleeping in his room. (to be verb - acting as main verb)

David, have you seen Alan today? (have verb - helping the main verb 'see')

I was working out when you called me yesterday. (to do verb- acting as main verb)

I am sure that Susan does not know anything about this trick. (to be verb (am)-- acting as main verb in that clause -- to do verb (does)-- helping the primary verb 'know')

-          Modal auxiliaries

The verbs ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘will’, ‘shall’, ‘would’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘must’, and ‘should’ are Modal Auxiliaries or modals.

I can do this job. 

We must attend the party. 

You should have helped John in Maths. 

May I come in, Sir? 

Mr. Thomas will attend the meeting shortly. 

 

3.     Verbs According to Meaning

This division of verbs according to meaning explains what a verb is. We may call this division of verbs as semantic classification.

• action words (action verbs)
• being
• having

Sources:

http://www.english-language-grammar-guide.com/types-of-verbs.html

Some pages of http://www.wikipedia.org

Thomson, A.J – Martinet, A.V, A Practical English Grammar, Oxford University Press